


Along the Gold Road

by Cakemage



Category: Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Horseback Riding, Original Equine Character - Freeform, journeys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-22 02:45:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17051588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cakemage/pseuds/Cakemage
Summary: An account of Captain Hieronymus Lex's journey from the Imperial City to Anvil.





	Along the Gold Road

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dizzy_fire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dizzy_fire/gifts).



Along the Gold Road

It had started out as such a nice day. The sun was shining, the air was cool and crisp, his usual morning patrol through the Imperial City’s lush and fragrant Arboretum District had been quiet and peaceful, and he’d just eaten an exceptionally fine lunch. Captain Hieronymus Lex of the Imperial Watch could find little to complain about, other than the continued threat of the Grey Fox and the Thieves Guild. Then came the transfer orders, delivered by none other than the Hero of Kvatch herself, a bright and personable Dunmer woman named Tevanna. She gave him a sympathetic smile and a pat on the shoulder as he cursed the Grey Fox, who had clearly orchestrated this turn of events.

“After all these years, he’s finally won,” he muttered as he held the transfer orders in shaking hands, scarcely noticing when Tevanna left him to his thoughts and not realizing until much later that his coin purse felt a good deal lighter than it had when he’d left his quarters that morning.

In a daze, Captain Lex walked back to the South Watch Tower to begin packing for the journey ahead. There was no sense in delaying the inevitable. The outraged response from the watchmen under his command as he broke the news to them lifted his spirits somewhat, but it was with a heavy heart that he returned his Imperial Watch armor to the armory, donned a set of heavy steel armor in its place, slung his pack over his shoulder and left the Watch Tower for the last time.

Feeling naked without his Watch armor, Lex slowly made his way through the city to the Chestnut Handy stables where his horse, a white mare he’d named Vigilia, was kept. He’d paid a child two Septims to run ahead and have one of the stable hands saddle her up, and sure enough, Restita Stalilia was waiting for him outside the gates of the Talos Plaza District with Vigilia standing next to her fully groomed, saddled and ready for the journey ahead.

“Safe travels to you, Captain,” said Restita as she handed him the reins.

“Thank you. You’ve done a fine job grooming her,” he replied, patting Vigilia on the neck before mounting up.

He tipped Restita three Septims for her trouble, only then noticing that his coin purse seemed to be much emptier than it should have been. Though he suspected he’d been the victim of a pick-pocket, there was nothing to be done about it now. It was time to go.

Captain Lex, formerly of the Imperial Watch, said a silent goodbye to the city he’d loved and protected for so many years, then turned and nudged Vigilia into a brisk walk down the hill and over the bridge to Weye. He did not look back.

The journey was fairly quiet at first, aside from the unfortunate pair of bandits that attacked him as he passed near the Ayleid ruin of Fanacasecul. They were quickly dealt with and even had a few healing potions on them, which came as a relief to the Captain, as he wasn’t certain he’d packed enough. Once they’d reached the Gold Road, he urged Vigilia into a swift trot, and smiled in spite of himself. His mare had one of the smoothest gaits he’d ever sat, and riding her was always a pleasure. He fondly remembered when his parents had surprised him with her after he’d made Captain. It had probably taken them ages to save up the coin to buy an Anvil White, especially one as fine as Vigilia, but they’d been so proud, so excited about having a Watch Captain for a son that he hadn’t had the heart to ask how they’d managed to afford her. Instead, he’d quietly increased the amount of money he sent home each month to a far greater sum than he’d originally planned upon sending after he’d received his promotion.

Lex sighed and loosened the reins a bit, letting Vigilia find her head as he lost himself in his memories.

“A knight in shining armor needs a white horse, after all!” his mother had said cheerfully as she mussed his hair affectionately with one hand and spilling a few drops of beer from the cup she held in the other.

“I’m not a knight, mother, I’m a Captain of the Watch. There’s a difference,” he’d replied as he tried in vain to straighten his hair, while smiling indulgently all the same.

“Oh, pish-tosh, that’s all techi-technicic, er, technicolo…that’s just, that’s just details is what it is!” she finally said with a boisterous laugh and another generous swig of beer.

He couldn’t remember what he’d been about to say then, as before he got the chance to speak his father had clapped him on the back so firmly that Lex nearly fell forward into his dinner plate.

“That’s my boy! Captain Hieronymus Lex!” he exclaimed, his voice booming with both fatherly pride and too much wine.

“Father…” Lex began, but was interrupted once again when his dad suddenly enveloped him in a nearly rib-crackingly tight hug while sobbing with drunken joy.

Hieronymus Lex couldn’t help but smile at the memories, but was soon broken out of his reverie by a great, bellowing roar that caused birds to scatter from the nearby trees and Vigilia to violently shy away, snorting with terror and nearly unseating her rider.

“Easy there,” Lex said, patting her on the neck and scanning his surroundings for the source of the roar.

This did not take long. It would have been difficult to miss the giant, horned figure barreling towards him from the edge of the Great Forest, its dwarven warhammer raised high, ready to crush the skull of anyone or anything in its path.

“A minotaur. Of course it’d be a minotaur,” Lex growled under his breath as he rapidly dismounted and looped the reins around Vigilia’s neck so that they would not get tangled up in her legs as she fled, which she did as soon as he let go. He’d expected this, and as he drew his silver claymore he took note of the direction she was heading in so that he could track her later. She was unlikely to run too long or stray too far, but at the moment that was the least of his concerns as the minotaur thundered towards him.

“Come on, then!” he cried, raising his sword and adopting a defensive stance.

He watched the beast’s approach and waited for the right moment to strike, which soon arrived as the minotaur, now less than two yards away, swung its hammer slowly but surely downward with the force of an angry god. Seeing his opening, Lex dodged underneath the descending hammer and shoulder-checked the minotaur’s legs, throwing it off-balance long enough for him to spin and slash at the tendons at the back of one of its knees, causing it to roar with pain and rage. Lex had just enough time to follow up his swing with a boot to the fresh wound before the minotaur whirled around with its hammer to side-swipe him, putting a sizable dent in his steel armor, disarming him and knocking him to the ground before it fell to its own knees. Fortunately for Lex, the armor took the brunt of the damage, though he knew at least one rib was cracked and several others were badly bruised. Unfortunately for Lex, the minotaur was just as capable of wielding its hammer while kneeling as it was when standing up. With an earth-shaking bellow, it raised the warhammer above its head, intent on bringing it down on Lex’s. The Captain managed to roll away mere seconds before impact, causing the hammer to strike the road instead, where it left a massive crater in the center. He made a note to let someone know about this as soon as possible, so that it could be swiftly repaired. Well-maintained roads were vital to the safety of the Empire and its people.

Ignoring the pain in his ribs, Lex quickly pulled himself to his feet and grabbed his claymore while the minotaur recovered from its failed attack. It was time to end this.

“This is the part where you fall down and bleed to death!” he cried as he charged the wounded beast and swung his sword at its shoulder, hacking off a substantial chunk of muscle in the process and causing the minotaur to drop its warhammer.

“Got you now, you hairy bastard,” Lex growled as his foe roared in pain and ineffectually tried to hit him with its good arm.

Knowing the beast couldn’t follow him with its leg out of commission, Captain Lex circled around behind it and swiftly drove his sword into its heart, killing it instantly. The battle finally over and the adrenaline fading away, he collapsed to his own knees and took a moment to catch his breath and wipe the blood spatter off of his face before reaching into his pack and grabbing a powerful healing potion. He pulled the cork out with his teeth and spat it onto the ground, then downed the entire bottle with one chug. He sighed in relief as the potion worked its magic and the pain simply faded away. He picked up the fallen cork (littering was a crime, after all) and pocketed it, then stood up and stretched his weary muscles. It was time to go and find Vigilia. First, however, there was the matter of the minotaur’s corpse. After relieving it of its horns, he hauled the body off of the road into the grass, where the carrion eaters could take care of the rest without disrupting traffic. After some internal debate, he decided to take the warhammer with him; he had no use for it personally, but he could probably sell it in Skingrad for a fair price, which would make up for the money that had most likely been stolen earlier in the day. He strapped it to his back and headed off in the direction that Vigilia had run.

It seemed that luck was finally on his side, for it turned out that Vigilia had gone further along down the Gold Road towards Skingrad, and he soon found her grazing by Grayrock Cave. She looked up and whickered softly at his approach.

“It’s all right now, girl,” he said as he gave her a carrot that he’d pulled from his pack at the start of his search.

He checked her and her tack over for damage as she happily crunched away, and finding none, he remounted and urged her into a fast trot. He’d lost a lot of daylight fighting that minotaur and then searching for Vigilia on foot, and he was eager to get to Skingrad for a rest. They maintained a steady pace for a while, stopping only to take care of a few aggressive goblins outside of Derelict Mine. Compared to his earlier fight, the goblins were a cakewalk, and he made short work of them without even needing to dismount. Even Vigilia seemed to have no fear of them. With Skingrad in sight, and the road leveling out somewhat, he signaled her to canter. The verdant, gently rolling fields and farmland of the West Weald were always a pleasant sight to behold, and viewing them from the back of a swiftly-moving horse somehow added to the appeal. Soon enough, the Grateful Pass stables were within view, and Lex slowed Vigilia to a walk to allow her to cool off a bit. Once there, it didn’t take long to arrange for her to get a good rubdown and feeding for the night. Afterwards, he made his way to into the city and the West Weald Inn, where he had a pleasant dinner and a warm bath before collapsing face-first into a bed and snoring the night away.

It took him a moment to get his bearings and register the fact that he wasn’t in his quarters in the South Watch Tower. He sighed and ran a hand through his hair before getting up, stretching, and heading downstairs. After a quick breakfast and a detour to Hammer and Tongs to sell the dwarven warhammer and have his armor repaired by the shop’s very hungover owner, he headed back out to the stables to ready Vigilia for the rest of their journey.

As they resumed course, Captain Lex had to admit that he was feeling better about his circumstances and, indeed, about the world in general. There was nothing like a good meal, a hot bath and a long rest to lift the spirits. The peaceful countryside surrounding him, so dissimilar to the Imperial City, was a like balm on his soul. Lex’s good mood lasted the rest of the morning and into the afternoon, and it was not until he neared the mountain road leading to the ruined city of Kvatch that it began to fade. The cause of this was a large troll standing in the middle of the road, growling and beating its chest as a challenge. Lex sighed.

“At least it’s not a minotaur,” he said to himself as he reined in the nervously prancing and snorting Vigilia long enough for him to dismount. He looped the reins around her neck once more and sent her off down the road.

“Let’s get this over with, shall we?” he said to the troll as he drew his sword.

The troll gladly obliged, but soon realized its mistake, though not soon enough. Once Lex had finished hauling the troll’s carcass over to the side of the road, he stretched a bit and set off once more to find his horse. To his dismay, he saw her hoofprints heading off the road and uphill, no less. Cursing under his breath, Lex followed her crisscrossing trail of hoofprints and trampled underbrush up and down the hills along the Gold Coast. He passed abandoned campsites, caves, a doomstone and even the remains of two Oblivion Gates (the Hero of Kvatch had clearly been busy), stopping only to fight the odd wolf, mountain lion, bandit or bear, as well as a couple of vacationing necromancers. It was around six o’clock when, weary and sore and more than a bit lost, Lex finally spotted Vigilia grazing peacefully near what looked to be an abandoned farmhouse, and sagged with both relief and exhaustion.

“There you are,” he chided as he approached her. “I hope you’re pleased with yourself. I’ve been scouring the whole of Tamriel for you, you know.”

Vigilia responded to this by nudging his pack with her nose, clearly searching for another treat.

Despite his exhaustion, Lex couldn’t help but smile at this.

“You’ll get another carrot when we get to Anvil, which may take a while given how far off course you’ve led us,” he said as he scratched her behind her chin and began to check her over.

Finding that she had once again come through the ordeal unscathed, he mounted up once more and turned her towards the old farmhouse.

“Perhaps if we’re lucky there’ll be a path nearby that’ll lead us to the road,” he said as he gently pressed his heels into her side to signal her to walk.

Sure enough, there was a small trail that ran down a small slope in front of the farmhouse, which led directly to…

“Anvil,” he whispered under his breath.

It was more beautiful than he ever could have imagined. There was the castle which sat grand and proud on a small island of its own. There were the docks, lined with moored ships and bustling with activity. There were the city walls, weather-beaten yet strong. There was the lighthouse that guided sailors safely to shore, and there beyond it was the shining Abecean Sea, its surface painted in vivid shades of gold and orange by the setting sun. A sudden and profound sense of peace settled into the heart of Hieronymus Lex as he gazed upon the enchanting scene before him.

“We’re home, Vigilia,” he said. "We're home."

The End.


End file.
